Dareen Tatour questioned about poetry; trial to resume on 26 January

Palestinian poet Dareen Tatouronce again faced the Magistrate’s Court in Nazareth on Thursday, 24 November. The hearing was the latest development in her prosecution by the Israeli state for writing and publicly posting her poetry. Arrested in October 2015, Tatour has spent over a year subject to ongoing confinement and repression, including over three months in prison and over nine months in house arrest. The presentation of the case is expected to end on 26 January 2017, when the next hearing will convene.

Tatour’s father stressed in an interview with Arab48 that his daughter is continuously suffering, despite the “easing” of her detention conditions won after worldwide attention to her case from international poets, artists and writers, including PEN, the freedom of expression association, as she is denied any meaningful freedom of movement. She continues to be threatened with years in prison for so-called “incitement,” among one of the most prominent Palestinians – and one who holds Israeli citizenship – targeted under this charge. The arrest and prosecution of Tatour also comes in the context of a long history of occupation persecution of Palestinian writers and artists, including such former prisoners as Mahmoud Darwish, Samih al-Qasim and Tawfiq Zayyad, like Tatour, Palestinians from occupied Palestine ’48. Learn more about the case at the Free Dareen Tatour facebook.